Between Charisma and Ordination: Vardapets as Ritualized Ecclesial Authority in the Armenian Tradition
(Fellow der Humboldt-Stiftung, 2025-2027)
My project examines the liturgical rite for the making of the spiritual master (vardapet) as a form of authority situated between charismatic recognition and institutional ordination. While the Armenian tradition has a well-developed hierarchical structure of bishops and priests, the vardapet – traditionally a learned religious figure authorized to teach and preach – embodies a distinctive mode of authority that is neither purely hierarchical nor merely personal. The office therefore represents a formalized recognition of spiritual discernment, interpretive skill, and pedagogical responsibility, integrating intellectual vocation into the liturgical fabric of the community.
By approaching the vardapet as a ritualized form of ecclesial authority, the present project examines how charisma becomes stabilized and transmitted within institutional structures without losing its association with learning, ascetic discipline, and interpretive creativity. Engaging with Max Weber’s theory of charisma, this project seeks to develop alternative visions for charisma dynamics which does not function as a contradiction to institutionalized authority. Drawing on late medieval liturgical and homiletic texts, my project proposes that the vardapet functions as a mediator between monastic pedagogy and ecclesial leadership. In this way, the project sheds light on a broader question pertinent to a number of ecclesial traditions: how religious communities recognize, ritualize, and authorize forms of learned knowledge in the life of the Church.